Creating with kids and the PFAFF creative sensation pro

I shouldn’t have been surprised. My son came in to find the creative sensation pro going “all on its own” and was immediately fascinated! Yes, I let my son create on the PFAFF – and I think he’ll remember it forever.

PFAFF creative sensation pro embroidering

Here’s how my son came to design on the creative sensation pro and the lessons I learned along the way.

He has a little stuffed penguin toy that is his buddy. It goes everywhere, does everything with him and even tries to talk;) My son has started dropping hints that he would like to make Timmy, the stuffed penguin, a quilt of his own. I have been skirting around the request and hoping he wouldn’t notice. I started thinking about fitting it in to my schedule next month.
Well, consider it squeezed in tonight!
Tonight being almost 7:30 at night.
Yes folks, he asked if he could design a quilt for Timmy with this machine. And I said yes.

First he sat down and scrolled through the embroidery designs. I knew there were a few penguins in there and he picked one out.
Then he decided it needed to be big! Much bigger.
He really liked the stylus so I told him which buttons to touch and we changed the hoop to the biggest that comes with the machine – the creative Deluxe 360×200 Hoop.
Then he touched the Resize button and used the stylus to enlarge the design.
Up came the biggest “I’m thinking don’t touch anything please wait” hourglass I’ve ever seen!!

What did I learn? The creative sensation pro likes to say YES to big creative ideas!

{and so do I!}

Selecting design with stylus

When he came in the machine had been typing out words, so he wanted to add Timmy’s name to the quilt too.

We picked out the same embroidery font in a size that I thought would look balanced with the large penguin design.

Spelling with embroidery font

The design fit. Next he was concerned with thread colors. He had already watched my design stitch out and realized that the colors suggested on the screen could be changed.

Now all of my spools of colorful thread are lined up across the space that’s left around the machine.

He asks what color fabric we’re going to use and I suggest yellow – his favorite!
I knew I had some extra stashed away with a quilt kit that I’m planning to make for his birthday – a kit HE picked out in a quilt store last year.I might have a budding quilter here!

I cut a fat quarter piece of the fabric and we decided to use the same fabric for the back of the quilt too. I ironed the fabric and layered the top piece with the batting underneath.
After a few inquiries about what the batting does, we had the hoop loaded and ready. I threaded the white onto the machine, adjusted the speed and he pressed the Stop/Start button.
Then he watched. And waited.

What did I learn? It’s fun to have creative control of a project and to encourage someone else’s creativity. Also, you can never have too many colors to choose from!

Watching design stitch out

My son decided to watch a TV show – to see if the design would be done when the show ended.
At this point the bobbin needed changing, which is easy enough to do on this machine even when embroidering.

You can move the hoop to bobbin position – except this hoop is so big that it bumped against the wall behind my machine and didn’t quite get to the right position.
After removing the hoop and filling the bobbin it took a few minutes of moving the needle position to get back to the right spot. But we did and started stitching out once more.

Bobbin speed

Twenty minutes later my son’s show ended. He showered. Had a bedtime snack. Went to bed.
I rethreaded the machine several times as the thread started breaking more often. About every 500 stitches or so! Eventually I changed out the spool for a different one and much less breakage.
He’s snoring and now the white is finished.

White finished

Time to switch to black and wait . . . another 59 minutes?!

Embroidery stitch out details

I let the black stitch out while I checked email and browse around online.

What did I learn? Embroidering large designs takes a lot of time.

Stitching out the black

Now what? Do I keep going? How much longer can it really take!

I decide that it’s too close to my bedtime to keep going. I save the design in the personal folder and turn the machine back on in the morning after making coffee. I have to go teach today but I figure we can get a bit more done before school.

Design saved

When I pick out the saved design I do have to change back to the Deluxe Hoop. I slow the speed down and get started with the new color. But the design doesn’t seem to be matching up exactly and I stop the stitch out.

I’m not sure what happened exactly, but at this point I’m committed to finishing the design. It’s only a quilt for a stuffed animal anyway, right?

Well, my son is a bit puzzled too why it’s not lined up exactly and has plenty of suggestions to try. It is a school morning so we turn off the machine to deal with it later.

I end up home before him and try the outline again. Still not perfect but I’m okay with it. Quickly I change the thread to finish the name. It looks good!

In the end the fat quarter is obviously way too big for the stuffed penguin. I ask my son how big he would like the finished quilt to be and I cut it down to 12″ x 13″. Then I use the quick envelope method – no binding! – and get the quilt layers sewn together.

It looks good – cute even. At this point there’s no quilting on the top and I can see some waviness from the embroidery.

I decide to see if there’s a decorative stitch that I could use to add to the design at the same time as adding some quilting to the quilt.

What did I learn? The creative sensation pro completes each step of a creative project with ease – and that sometimes, experience helps move a creative project along.

Snowflake stitch

Snowflakes! Perfect. I change to the blue thread and add a line of the stitch to the top of the quilt. Without asking my son first – sometimes experience is important and knowing when to add a bit more to finish a project can help make it something special.

If you look at the top left corner of the Color Touch Screen in the photo above you’ll see that the snowflake stitch uses presser foot 2A. This foot doesn’t use the IDT System that comes in PFAFF machines.

Foot 2A doesn’t use IDT System

Quilt with top row of snowflake stitching

He loved it! Wants another line in fact along the bottom. But can it be done in time for bed tonight?

Did I forget to mention that he actually had a friend sleepover last night. And it’s now the weekend and I’m still behind on laundry. Minor details to a child!

Penguin mini quilt done

So the quilt got used for the first time before it was finished. And his friend who slept over was interested in having a quilt made for his stuffed animal. They even looked through the Embroidery collection guide together.

Now there’s a gift and a memory!

I hope you learned from this post what I did from this experience:

You’re never too young or too old to embrace the creative possibilities of the creative sensation pro.

I love to play with color and *quilts* are my playground! A self-taught quilter, I've been designing quilts for almost 20 years. I'm inspired by happy fabrics, selvages, traditional blocks and nature. I'm also a wife, mother, and elementary school teacher, and enjoy drinking coffee on my front porch in northern Ontario.